It is so fucking on:
Senators [The] Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) released the following statement today in response to the announcement that the Senate this week will consider the compromise legislation that would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) this week.
“This is a deeply flawed bill, which does nothing more than offer retroactive immunity by another name. We strongly urge our colleagues to reject this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation and oppose any efforts to consider this bill in its current form. We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.
“If the Senate does proceed to this legislation, our immediate response will be to offer an amendment that strips the retroactive immunity provision out of the bill. We hope our colleagues will join us in supporting Americans’ civil liberties by opposing retroactive immunity and rejecting this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation.”
And that means ‘filibuster’. Feingold for veep. Barbara Boxer and Ron Wyden (who I have never heard of, but who appears to be a Senator) will join them. Obama needs to recognize.
… See also dday:
Senator Reid just informed his colleagues on the Senate floor that, because of all the other bills in the queue (like the housing bill, and the Iraq supplemental), FISA may not get a vote until after the July 4 holiday recess.
This is honestly the best we can hope for right now. Sens. Dodd, Wyden and Feingold are ready to filibuster and gamely trying to get colleagues to do the same (Sen. Dodd’s speech tonight was a bravura performance), but realistically the numbers to stop cloture aren’t there. However, that could change if the delay continues. And getting this to the recess means being able to get in a lot of Senators’ faces on their trips back home. In addition, there’s going to be a very short window in August where a ton of must-pass bills have to get through Congress, and throwing FISA in with that mess means that anything can happen.
We’ve been on the brink with this a bunch of times, I can’t even remember how many, and we’ve always pulled back just in time. The stars might be lining up for this again.
Oh, and fuck Steny Hoyer, walking around with two dog names taped together. Loser.
June 24, 2008 at 6:39 pm
FUCK YEAH!!!
June 24, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I hadn’t thought of Russ for the veepstakes, but it’s an intriguing idea. I wonder if the fact that everyone knows Feingold from McCain-Feingold is a positive or negative.
Mickey Kaus’s head would explode, though, and that wouldn’t be all bad.
June 24, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Also, Ron Wyden was a no vote on the AUMF and his wife runs the Strand bookstore in NYC where her introduction Matt Yglesias and Josh Marshall at an event made clear she doesn’t read liberal blogs.
But his record suggests he should write one.
June 24, 2008 at 7:37 pm
That motherfuckin’ better mean it’s on. Oh, it’d motherfuckin’ better.
June 24, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Sixteen Democrats and Joe Lieberman signed the cloture petition Reid filed on Monday. 17 + 43 Republicans (giving away 6, which is unlikely) is enough to limit debate. The cloture vote is coming tomorrow. It will succeed.
But the commitment to introduce and fight for the amendment to strip immunity is welcome. Please get your Senators to commit to voting for that amendment. Contact information at {Senatorlastname}.senate.gov, for both the DC and local offices.
June 24, 2008 at 8:37 pm
It is indeed on…Obama alluded to opposing the retroactive immunity, and now Dodd and Russ are going to give him a chance to put up or shut up. Let’s do the right thing, Barack!
June 24, 2008 at 9:13 pm
It’s time that the tale were told. Hoyer, Pelosi, and Reid need to go. They are losers—by virtue of losing, which is by definition what constitutes being a loser.
June 24, 2008 at 9:13 pm
It’s not quite a blog, but Sen. Wyden has a neat web site at http://www.standtallforamerica.com/
June 24, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Feingold would rock as VP! Hate to lose him in the Senate but it would show some, so far lacking, commitment on Obama’s part to being who he says he is.
Plus Feingold’s my favorite for 2016 anyway.
June 25, 2008 at 6:16 am
Yo. It’s On muthafucka…
June 25, 2008 at 6:36 am
The Dodd is playing your song, The:
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4476
Now if that ain’t Senate-speak for “You can’t unshit the bed,” I don’t know what is.
That’s damn near a shout-out, The.
June 25, 2008 at 6:36 am
Totally hollow and lame. We’ll offer an amendment, for a public while, then go away.
June 25, 2008 at 8:47 am
They’ve been doing this since December.
June 25, 2008 at 9:21 am
[...] that an Obama presidency could affect in American politics with my bitter disappointment that only Senators Feingold and Dodd seem to give enough of a shit about the Constitution to stand on the floor of the Senate and fight [...]
June 25, 2008 at 9:25 am
Dodd: We can’t un-pass the Military Commissions Act.
Um, yes you could. And in light of the Boumediene and Parhat decisions, you ought to. “Un-pass” has a perfectly good English equivalent: repeal.
The rest, yes, they’re irreversible.
As would be retroactive immunity to the telecoms. As would be the horrific precedent it would set for legislative interference in the judicial process.
It’s worth fighting with everything we have to stop it.
June 25, 2008 at 9:31 am
OK, this is a knowingly , ultimately, ineffectual political show. They know how a bill becomes a law, I support their cause I just look at each member district by district, and state by state and via their records and financial connections and I can magically extrapolate the future. I’m a seer. If they were to be successful they would require the only thing more magical then enough cash on hand to retain your seat for life, public demand. Public demand does stem from education on the subject, and to that end I like this strategy as the big top pandering it is. I’m mostly skeptical because they’ve done this since December and still haven’t seen this register as something people will demand, because that’s the only way they will really get what they want. Much in the same way the Senate couldn’t impeach Clinton, there just wasn’t the votes. So if they know what I know, and they do, then they’re doing it for cynical political reasons and/or not just issue education.
June 25, 2008 at 9:39 am
I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
June 25, 2008 at 9:45 am
This has been going on since the mid-90s.
http://epic.org/open_gov/foia/nsa_suit_12_99.html
June 25, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Hm. From Todd’s link:
in an unusual public reprimand of the secretive spy agency. Rep. Porter J. Goss,
chairman of the oversight panel, wrote in a committee report in May that NSA’s rationale for withholding the legal memoranda was “unpersuasive and dubious.” He noted that if NSA lawyers “construed the Agency’s authorities too permissively, then the privacy interests of the citizens of the United States could be at risk.”
But an NSA under a Republican administration couldn’t possibly put the privacy interests of the citizens of the United States at risk.
June 25, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Here’s some anagrams for ol’ Steny:
teeny horsy
heresy tony
theory yens
sneer thy yo
thy nosy e’er
he nosey try
eeny shorty
snotyy here
I like “ho entry? yes” best
June 26, 2008 at 1:57 am
I guess I’m missing a joke but I will take “Ron Wyden (who I have never heard of, but who appears to be a Senator)” seriously.
Ron Wyden is te awesome. Not because he proposed a universal health insurance bill (way better than Edward’s plan let alone Obama’s) but because he approved of this message
June 26, 2008 at 2:01 am
I mean this message http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCHIuAShX8A
entitled “Class War On”
June 26, 2008 at 6:35 am
Well, hot damn, Robert W., I’ll take one Ron Wyden over 20 Joe Bidens, please.